Chapter 3 First Lesson

~Author's POV~

At exactly 6:58 PM, Nova is already waiting in the rink. Good thing she dressed warmly cause the rink was freezing. Only a few dim security lights illuminated the quiet space.

Nova stood at center ice with her arms folded tightly across her chest, staring toward the side entrance.

She's expecting him to be late. It almost feels like she hopes he will be. Then the side door opens. Colt strolls onto the ice like he owns the place.

He was already dressed in full hockey gear—helmet, bulky shoulder pads, gloves, skates, and his hockey stick resting casually against one shoulder. His movements are loose and confident, completely at odds with the stiffness she had noticed earlier the previous day.

But he still has that smug grin on his face which made her roll her eyes.

Colt stops a few feet away, looking her over as though she'd summoned him here rather than the other way around.

“I see you read my message,” he said as his grin widens. “Good thing you're here on time.”

Nova slowly lowered her arms.

“I'm beginning to regret it.”

Colt chuckles. “Aww. And here I thought you'd be happy to see me.”

“Don't flatter yourself, Callahan.”

His grin only grew. “Still feisty, Barbie.”

Nova's eyes narrows. She didn't return his smile. Instead, she sprays shaved ice straight across his skate toes.

"Take off the stick and the shoulder pads, Callahan. You look like a walking refrigerator." She glides off.

Colt scoffs, twirling his stick: "Coach said you're here to give me agility tips, Arden, not strip my gear. Let's do some power sprints so I can get the hell out of here and back to sleep."

"You're here because Coach Henderson knows your skating is garbage," Nova snaps back, skating circles around him with effortless, direct and sharp precision.

"Out here, you don't use a stick to lean on, and you don't body-check your way through turns. Drop the stick or I walk out that door, tell Henderson you refused to bring down your ego and let him bench you."

The threat hangs loud and clear. She isn't there to play house with him. If they will be doing this, it will be by her rules.

Gritting his teeth, Colt dumps his stick and pads over the glass onto the bench, leaving him in just his fitted black compression shirt and hockey pants.

Nova puts him through basic forward and backward outside-edge glides.

"The first thing you're going to do is to stand with your feet together, knees bent, and look toward the direction you want to travel on a curve.," she explains patiently. "Then you push off from your inside edge and shift your full weight onto one foot like this."

She goes on to demonstrate what she said for better understanding. Colt watches with a level of cockiness and disinterest.

Nova turns to face him. "You turn." She gestures to the open ice. "Give it a try."

The moment Colt takes his stance and begins, Nova is taken aback by the unsightly situation. It's an immediate disaster.

The six-foot-four campus superstar wobbles like a newborn deer. His ankle wobbled. His shoulders tilted. His free leg shot out for balance and he windmilled one arm before barely catching himself.

Colt straightened, pretending nothing had happened.

She ignored it and demonstrated the movement again, smoothly carving a clean curve into the ice before gliding backward.

"Your problem is that you're fighting the blade," Nova said. "Stop trying to muscle through it. Let the edge carry you."

Colt tried again and still did poorly.

He leans too far forward, his weight collapsing onto the wrong part of the blade. His feet tangles for half a second before he manages to recover.

Nova sighs and shakes her head. "You have heavy footwork, stiff ankles, and absolutely no control through your core."

Colt snaps. "I've played hockey for years."

"And somehow none of those years taught you how to balance," Nova states with a straight face.

Colt's competitive pride boils over. Furious at being humiliated by a girl half his size, he decides to prove he doesn't need her baby drills.

"I was just warming up. Watch and learn, Arden," Colt snarls, digging his blades in and accelerating into a high-speed hockey pivot.

His right hip catches violently on the sharp rotational torque. Instead of carving, his skate blade skips in the ice rut and he loses control completely and quickly.

Nova's eyes widens as he barrels towards her with no control. She tries to dodge, but Colt’s massive frame clips her side. They crash together onto the ice in an ugly, violent tangle of limbs and skate blades.

Nothing about the fall was playful or funny. Only pure excruciating bruising pain.

Nova smacks her left shoulder hard against the lower dasher boards, while Colt lands heavily on his right hip, letting out a strangled, agonizing groan that he tries to choke down.

Nova pushes herself up, wincing from the throbbing pain in her shoulder. That was the switch that went off. Her temper explodes into white-hot rage.

"Are you completely insane?! You almost broke my leg, you arrogant asshole!"

Colt is on one knee, his face pale and dripping with cold sweat, his right hand shaking as he presses it against his hip. But his pride won't let him back down.

He glares at her. Anger and pain mixed in one. "Your drills are useless garbage, shortie. You don't know a damn thing about hockey."

"And you don't know a damn thing about skating!" Nova yells back.

Huffing, she skates off the ice to the sides, swaps her skates for a pair of flats and grabs her bag from the penalty box.

"Where are you going? You're just going to leave?" He asks as he watches her pack up.

She storms out of the rink, leaving Colt alone, clutching his hip on the ice,

"Have fun on the bench on Friday, Callahan. Because I am done saving your stupid career."